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Warmer Oceans linked to Stronger Hurricanes
linguizic writes "According to Scientific American, global warming could be creating stronger hurricanes: 'Since the 1970s, ocean surface temperatures around the globe have been on the rise--from one half to one degree Fahrenheit, depending on the region. Last summer, two studies linked this temperature rise to stronger and more frequent hurricanes. Skeptics called other factors into account, such as natural variability, but a new statistical analysis shows that only this sea surface temperature increase explains this trend.'"
Ok, well, for some people it was. :)
You are not the customer.
It sure would be nice if people could discuss science and not politics, especially for something so important. But I'm not holding my breath.
Uh, is climate change not a political issue? Should we avoid political discussions whenever an issue is "important"? Seems like a strange idea to me.
I think what you mean to say is that we should avoid political discussions that consist of braindead mudslinging (e.g. "Everyone who drives a car is a guilty of ecological genocide!", "If you criticize car culture, you're with the terrorists", etc., etc.).
The Kyoto Protocol always was and always will be useless. Everyone would need to sign the Kyoto treaty some 50 times or so to even NOTICE changes in the environment. Secondly, the way the treaty is arranged no one who's signed it is actually meeting the requirements it sets, they're just trading their excess productions in each field with people who do. So why sign a treaty that's economically damaging since it's so useless? The only thing that will reduce our environmental footprint is creating and using cleaner technologies, and the best way to do that is to have as efficient and powerful an economy as possible, but direct it in the ways that we want to.
I don't know what stypraphone is, byut Styrofoam has little to do with global warming. The CFCs used to expand styrofoam until the mid-1980s deplete ozone in the stratosphere. This causes an increase in UV radiation at ground level, not global warming.
Recycling reduces the energy consumed in industry. On one extreme, aluminum takes huge amounts of energy to smelt from ore, but relatively little to melt and re-cast. On the other, seperating, transporting, and recycling paper products takes slightly more energy than using new material, BUT reduces deforestation, thus preserving the CO2 absorbtion capabilities of the worlds forests.
Global warming is a global phenomenon, and weather patterns are changing over the whole world. There may be some areas that have lower temperatures, but this does not disprove global warming, since the aggregate temperatures are still higher.
I suggest you go back to school and get brainwashed with grammer, critical thinking, composition, the scientific method, the meaning of a scientific theory and hypothesis, but mostly critical thinking.
While everyone is entitled to their own opinion, nobody is entitled to their own facts. (I need an atribution for that; it isn't original.)
Muddling the population's grasp of the facts is not hard, as there is too much going on for us all to be an expert on everything. It nevertheless is cheating. There is much organized cheating going on, intended to confuse the population. The effects of this cheating are visible in any online conversation where science impinges on policy, and slashdot is hardly immune.
Whether or not human activity is substantially changing climate, for instance, is not a speculative matter. Its truth or falsehood is established science. Nevertheless there is organized activity to convince you of the plausibility of impossible propositions.
Splitting the difference is not as reasonable as it might appear, as the side which is lying is totally unconstrained by facts.
Any debate on whether humanity is substantially changing climate constitutes a failure of the society to use the information it has, of the scientific community to convey it, and of the special interests to restrain vicious antisocial activity on the part of some of its key members.
I do not specify which side is lying on this matter. It won't be hard for you to track down my opinion, but that's beside the point I'm making here. The point is that we are debating facts and not values or policies, which means that democracy is not functioning effectively.
This is occurring in the context of a number of similar failures to come to grips with reality in the absurd noise that passes for public discourse in America, and the irresponsible power games that pass for politics. Climate change probably isn't the most harmful case, yet, though it's competitive...
mt
I love how many people on one side of this debate (there are more than two) seem to think investing in new technology and researching effective ways of changing consumption patterns amount to "putting our economy on hold." Talk about futurephobia.
If I had a cent to invest, I'd be looking for the intersection for emerging consumer economies (that is, formerly 3rd world countries with rapidly growing middle classes) and alternative energy sources, particularly those that will survive increased international pressure as evidence for climate change caused by human carbon emissions masses (the evidence is already pretty rock solid, but as more amasses, fewer and fewer in the international community will be able to ignore it.) So look for zero carbon (wind looks to be the most promising right now) and carbon-neutral (biofuels, you only release as much carbon as what you grew absorbed in its lifetime - as opposed to burning carbon you dig out of the ground) power solutions in the former 3rd world. Invest across a handful of technologies and markets, and you're pretty sure to do well.
Put our economy on hold? WTF? Things are changing. Economies are always in states of flux. Don't deny science because it might be inconvenient to your pocketbook; reorient your pocketbook to the current situation.
In Capitalist America, bank robs you!